


The Four Summers That They Lived (And The Winter When They Died)

by spinsterclaire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Death, Gen, Love, One Shot, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsterclaire/pseuds/spinsterclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Cersei's lives from birth to death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Summer

**Author's Note:**

> With the onslaught of season 4 Jaime/Cersei clips, I felt like writing another piece about their lives together. I really enjoyed writing this one!
> 
> TWO WEEKS TO GO!

**i.**

They are born when the air is hot, two mirrors, two suns, two halves of one shining, golden locket. Their eyes burn green while their roars rip through the Seven Kingdoms, and they are worn like gemstone medallions around their father’s neck. (They will choke him in the end and remind him of all he’s lost, but for now he kisses their foreheads, brushing his lips against untarnished gold and tasting _power_ on his tongue.) They are fierce and ferocious, every inch a cherubic copy of their inimitable sire, Tywin Lannister.

The babies are the pride and joy of the Rock – bright futures of an ever-brightening family dynasty – and their birth is celebrated throughout all of Lannisport. Wine flows and good tidings are offered, and the people blossom beneath the beauty of the new twins, both beacons of light in the darkness that has descended under Targaryen reign. They will snuff out the madness and restore their world to its former glory; two soldiers come to redeem and save and _rule_ , the townsfolk breathe with eyes gleaming.

Lord Tywin smiles while his wife lays in bed, the twin babes cradled gently in her arms. With their eyes on fire and the Kingdoms at their feet, they look a pride of lions basking in the warmth of the summer sun. No one can touch them.

**ii.**

The boy is Jaime, the girl Cersei, and they live as if they're attached at the hip. Their bodies are puzzle pieces, the septas joke, a collection of nerves standing on end in search of their electric spark. They wail endlessly when separated, howling and crying like tiny angry gods, and so Joanna Lannister lets the babes sleep in the same crib. Identical side by identical side, they greet evenfall and dawn in unison. Their two chests rise and fall just as the sun and moon climb up and down – all to the sound of their same beating heart – and this becomes the tempo of their lives, the faint music that will always play softly in the background. At night, Jaime and Cersei's limbs tangle like the vines of the ivy-covered castle walls, and they are the first thing each other sees when they wake in the morning. Green eyes staring at green eyes, recognizing their other half and what it means to be complete.

**iii.**

Jaime is the first to walk and though his steps are clumsy and unsure, he wanders Casterly Rock day and night. He learns every hidden tunnel, every nook and cranny ridden with the cobwebs of Lannister yesteryears, and familiarizes himself with what it means to have a place and a purpose in this world. It is at this tender age that Jaime learns his history, and recognizes that he is destined for something great. He is _a Lannister_ , after all.

One afternoon Jaime finds a passage big enough for two – a small alcove near the Casterly sept – and he gleefully gurgles of his discovery to his twin sister. _Come with me._ But instead of bounding fast behind him, his sister crawls slowly in his wake, watching as Jaime waddles back to her with arms outstretched. Again: _Come with me_. Cersei refuses his assistance, even pushes him away in defiance, and continues on past her twin brother. On chubby hands and knees, Jaime will crawl alongside his sister until the day she learns to walk, never leaving Cersei for a single second. (She will not miss this until years later when she is all alone, her naked head cradled in her hands as darkness consumes her.)

**iv.**

Cersei takes her first steps on a fine cool day in early fall, and that is when Jaime shows her the tiny passage near the sept. It will be their safe haven for years to come, a secret place where they will play their children's games until they are children no more…

While burrowed inside their private cocoon, Jaime and Cersei sometimes hear the septas and septons chanting their prayers, harmonious and eerie in their monotony. The twins swear they’re whispering their names and that they are two gods among men. Immortal.


	2. The Second Summer

**i.**

It is years before the long winter dissipates, and much changes in the time it takes for the naked tree limbs to bear their leaves once more. When the warmth does finally return to the Kingdoms and restore the Rock to its burning glory, the heat between the two lion twins melts them into one liquid, golden mass. Where one begins, the other ends, and even their parents can scant tell them apart when they dress in each other’s clothes. It is their favorite game – this stepping into the skin of the other and breathing as their other self – second only to the one they play in the secret spot that is just for them.

Jaime no longer has to wait on Cersei, for she is always a million leagues ahead of him, long yellow tendrils always out of grasp, teasing and unattainable. She is his greatest challenge, his greatest love, and all of the Rock jokes that Cersei has him wrapped around her little finger. He does whatever she asks, and she loves him for it all the more, and they both whisper things like _“forever”_ and _“always”_ when no one else is listening. Words are merely wind, though, and they allow themselves to forget this one simple truth for the sake of memorizing each other's bodies from head to toe.

**ii.**

Cersei winds Jaime even closer on one midsummer’s evening when she presses her lips to his in a feverish passion. The chamber door is closed as they kiss, mouths dancing, and the gods watch as the constellations realign to rewrite the lion twins’ fates in the sky ( _They are more than brother and sister,_ the Seven read). Cersei tells him she then that feels whole, _complete_ , and he tells her, too, that he will marry her one day, in front of all those that they must hide from. They fall asleep, entwined, to the din of stars whispering the sweetest of words in their ears, love’s newest causalities.

At night they dream that they will stand together atop the highest mountain. The world is theirs (and only theirs) and when they wave, the crowd cheers.

**iii.**

Though it is summer, all light disappears when Joanna Lannister takes her last breath and is burned to a black smoke. Jaime weeps, Tyrion wails, and Tywin Lannister grieves in stony silence, while Cersei’s eyes remain dry as the arid air. Joanna has tucked Cersei’s compassion deep within her bosom, taken it with her out to sea, and the young lioness vows to never shed a single tear again. Cersei’s edges harden, her words sharpen and Jaime watches his sister change from cub to lion as she bares her teeth and swipes her claws at any who dare draw near. She is always angry and her fury burns hot in her mouth, scolding his tongue and numbing his taste buds to anything other than the bittersweetness of _her_.

She becomes her old self, though – _his_ Cersei – when they crawl into their shared alcove and kiss and touch each other in the places that they shouldn’t. But even then, he notices, she is fiercer and stronger – her skin many degrees colder than it once was – and he wonders how long this will last. (It will last a long time; it will last forever.)

**iv.**

Jaime learns to fight with a sword, and soon the length of Valaryian steel becomes an arm that Cersei will never have. He parries the attacks of the other Lannisport boys (none ever matching his own impressive skill) and sometimes he goes to court, too, to show off his prowess. He is Tywin Lannister’s eldest son and greatest triumph, and Cersei often hates him for it.

Tyrion grows and waddles on his diminutive stumps, while a violet and ivory Rhaegar Targaryen saunters into their lives. Cersei’s eyes are always fixed on them, either burning with hatred or sparkling in admiration, and Jaime hates that she is no longer always looking in his direction. (He often stares into the mirror at his own reflection – just to remember what her eyes look like when they are not wandering elsewhere. He remembers swimming in those emerald pools the minute he woke up so very long ago, and so he sneaks into her bed at night just to relive those early morning moments.) Sometimes Cersei draws pictures of little girls killing dwarves; at other times she writes of princesses and princes on the backs of dragons. When Jaime finds her work he crumples it up, furious, and pretends they are his foes being crushed in the palms of his hand. They cannot take what is his – no one can – and he prays that nothing will ever become of the silver prince of House Targaryen. (Nothing ever does, though he will follow Cersei Lannister as a purple specter, another reminder of what she wanted but could not have.)

The twins kiss more passionately now that they are older, and they do things they’ve never done before. Jaime scratches Cersei’s back and Cersei bites Jaime’s lip, both drawing blood and marking their rightful territory. _You are mine._ They fuck until their bodies ache and then often wonder what it is exactly that they have done, knowing that it is wrong that it feels so right. The summer light is all around them but they always crave the darkness of the shadows. It becomes their home, the place they feel safest in each other's arms.


	3. The Third Summer

**i.**

Cersei is the most beautiful lady in all the Seven Kingdoms ( _Woman_ , Jaime has to remind himself, for his twin sister is very much a _woman_ now.) and Jaime is their finest knight. Boys and girls alike, fall prey to their golden charms but, still, they love only each other and lock themselves away from anyone else that may try to storm their walls. Suspicions run wild and become tiny daggers in their sides as Lannisport whispers of identical sobs coming from the twins’ sleeping quarters late at night. “Merely a ghost,” Cersei tells her youngest sibling, and, in a way, what she says does hold a shred of truth: her love for Jaime will haunt her for the rest of her life. (It is her shadow, her own demon from hell, though it always feels like heaven on earth.)

They are a boy and girl grown now, more alive and hungry for Something ( _Power_ , their dreams tell them) than ever before. Sometimes, though, they still hide themselves deep within their secret alcove, becoming children once again. They tuck and fold their long limbs beneath themselves and feel each other’s breaths kiss their faces in the small, dark space. In such close quarters their lips and hands and bodies always seek and find their targets, joining as one and reveling in the fullness that accompanies the feeling of the other’s goosebumps against their own. They both moan thankful praise in each other’s ears, ( _Jaime, yes,_ harder _Jaime_ ; _Cersei,_ gods _, don’t stop._ ) and make love all night, hidden away in their childhood treasure chest. They long to stay young and golden like this forever…

**ii.**

But they cannot. They are separated for a time, the two twins with one heart, and their bodies seek and find nothing for quite a while. It is strange not feeling whole, they think, and sometimes they muse that they are just as dead as their mother, Joanna. Dust blowing aimlessly in the wind with nowhere to go.

**iii.**

When Jaime kills King Aerys, he tells himself that he does it to spare his father’s life. But as true as that may be, Jaime knows that the sword that pierces the Mad King’s back is driven not only by his allegiance to Tywin Lannister but by his love of that green-eyed angel, too. _I am a knight, and Cersei will be queen_. (Just as they had always planned.) He bemoans the moniker that is given to him following Aerys’ murder, but he thinks it’s surely worth having the people see Cersei as he has always seen her. A golden queen, the most perfect thing in all the land.

At eight and ten Cersei is arranged to marry Robert Baratheon. Finally reunited in Kings Landing, the twins come alive again, and fuck and kiss and touch like they used to, back when the stars had sung and they could read each other’s souls in the goosebumps on their skin. They taste the sacred familiarity of each other, all the while knowing that time is neither kind nor merciful to those who play with fire. The minute Robert’s cloak is draped around Cersei’s shoulders, they realize, everything between them must die and be forgotten. (It is hard to forget a part of yourself, though, to turn a blind eye to the parts of your body that remind you that you belong to someone else. And so their children’s games do not end there.)

When Cersei fucks Jaime on the morning of her wedding, they both know that it will not be the last time they give themselves to one another. After Jaime leaves, Cersei breaks her vow and weeps for hours, each one of her tears a piece of her twin as much as a piece of herself. She cries until their joint souls are little ponds pooling in her palms, her own sadness reflected back at her in the salty waters.

**iv.**

Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen are born throughout the years, each one of them emerging crowned in shades of amber and gold. _Their births prolong the never-ending summer_ , the Kingdoms say, not knowing that the next one will go on even longer, though most of the Lannister-Baratheon children will not live to witness its end. The babes look nothing like the king, with his mass of curly brown hair and ruddy-skinned cheeks, but are the spitting image of their mother in all her soft and immeasurable beauty. (People joke that this is a mercy from the Seven – but that’s only because they have forgotten Robert was once a handsome man. He has not always been the drunken, detestable pig that he's become.) It pleases Cersei that the kids should look so much like herself – so much like her brother, their _true_ father – and every time Robert looks at their faces she can hear the gods’ derisive laughter. (She does not know that it is she that the Seven are mocking…For her children will all go before her, one following the other in quick succession, until she has nothing at all.)

Jaime swears that the child, Myrcella, _knows_. Whenever he holds her to his chest or runs his fingers through hers she mumbles, “Dada,” and he does nothing to correct her. No one else hears the exchange but it plays over and over in his mind for years to come, the sweetest and strangest lullaby he has ever heard. It is odd being a father, he muses, and Jaime often thinks the part does not suit him. (In time, he strives to forget the notes and the way the music had lifted him high on that one summer’s morning. He feigns deaf and tells himself he could not care less about the cubs that are his but not his, never looking at them too long for fear that he might hear that same song again and never be able to turn away.)

The twins exist like this, eyeing each other across the throne room in the day and fucking each other on that godforsaken chair in the night. Their three golden sins sleep and are forgotten then, if only until the sun comes up to chase the silver night away.


	4. The Fourth Summer

**i.**

Jaime and Cersei’s fourth summer becomes the longest known to memory, superior only to the one preceding it. The air is sweltering in all corners of the kingdoms - wet and suffocating in all its heaviness - and the humidity forms a sweaty blanket on the shoulders of the twins. It collects in the crevices of their bodies where they meet and mesh together, and they drown in it until they come up for air, gasping. When they break surface a man is standing there – Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King – and he sends the waves crashing down upon their heads before they can catch their breath. Jaime clings to Cersei’s foot as the water rushes all around them and, miraculously, they stay together – though only barely. The man is murdered - the secret gone with him - though the young boy discovers them in the Winterfell tower not much later. ( _The things I do for love.)_ Even afterwards, though, Bran Stark’s lifeless legs and hazy memory do little to soothe the twins’ fears and they know that while their children’s games have ended, another one has now begun. (And this time there will be – _can_ be – no victor.)

**ii.**

Jaime is sent off to battle Stark forces, Cersei remains in the capital, and the endless War of the Five Kings rages on. Bodies amass in the streets and fields, the crows picking apart their rotting corpses – Robert, the Starks, Joffrey, Tywin. The victims of men's petty desires are endless. Death becomes Westeros’ most frequent visitor, as unwelcome and despised as he may be. When Cersei and Jaime see each other again it is as strangers meeting for the first time. Though Jaime is without his hand, it is Cersei who is most changed, having been torn apart at the seams each time a child was stolen from her. Jaime does not recognize the shadow that is his sister – her eyes are darker, her skin greyer, her claws shaper – and, as such, he cannot even see himself when he studies his own reflection. Without Cersei he is nothing, and they both fade away from each other, their former selves becoming distant memories that echo in their heads as two children’s laughter.

**iii.**

Cersei has no hair, but still clings to one hope, to two pieces of a shattered heart, and to a plea spoken three times ( _I love you, I love you, I love you_ ). She waits and she waits for a salvation that she thinks will come but never truly does.

“Put this in the fire,” Jaime says when he reads the note that is not in his sister’s handwriting. He could turn around, go back to her, crawl on his hands and knees and return to Cersei’s side as he once had. Instead, though, Jaime walks away and the three words spoken three times in such earnest appeal fall to ground in a pile of ash. (They will meet again – the two mirrors, the two suns, the two halves of one shining, golden locket – but by then it will be far too late.)

**iv.**

Cersei is stripped bare and paraded through the streets to present her shame to all of King's Landing. Her naked body atones for the sins she is told to regret, though she remains adamant in her stance against her pious captors. At night she dreams of hands wrapped around her skinny throat, choking the life out of her in a merciful answer to her prayers. One hand is bruised, a bit scarred – the other, gold. In her dream, she always welcomes this fatal clutch of Death as if it is the tender lover she has been waiting for all along. _Thank you._

Jaime fights and kills as much as he breathes and shits. The sight of blood makes him feel less alone and he craves the relief that comes with the outpouring of red; that reassurance that the same metallic rivers flow through every single man and woman, mother and child, king and peasant ( _brother and sister_ ). At night Jaime sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning to the sound of the dying’s final wails of anguish, but he dreams of absolutely nothing. Only blackness.


	5. The Last Winter

**i.**

When winter comes it is with a cruel vengeance, and all the world becomes a sheet of bluish, purple ice. The fabled dragons arrive with their silver mother perched upon their backs, just as an army of White Walkers charge through all of Westeros with rusted and tarnished weapons of steel. Both kill and slaughter with the same relentless vigor until it becomes impossible to distinguish between the two – who is good and who is evil when death is brought by both? The Targaryen queen’s promises of freedom and salvation mix with the cries of the fallen, and all becomes a whirr of endless noise. There is neither good nor bad, Lannister nor Stark, Tyrell nor Martell, brother nor sister – everything is grey, grey, grey. The world around them dies in a song of ice and fire, crumbling beneath the weight of the dashed ambitions and broken hopes of those that lay dying in the snow.

**ii.**

The twins lie side by side, blood seeping out of gashes so deep the whites of their bones are visible to the human eye. They stare at each other – greens eyes and green eyes, those same two babes sharing the same pillow as children – and see all of each other as if for the first time. They see their blood, their skin, their bones, their heart, their soul, realizing that they are not the golden gods that they had once thought they were. They are and have always been merely brother and sister, lovers – _humans_.

**iii.**

Jaime feels the life inside him fading quickly and knows that his time is short.

“You cannot go before me,” Cersei begs softly, “You cannot leave me here alone.”

It is just as it was when they were green as grass – Jaime bumbling about in curiosity, Cersei still crawling on her hands and knees – and so Jaime waits for the woman who has run ahead of him so many times before. He reaches out and grabs Cersei’s neck, squeezing tightly, and unlike before, she accepts his help with gratitude. She does not struggle within his grasp but looks only at him, gaze unwavering. Jaime’s vision blurs and his breathing continues to slow, but he waits for her. He waits for her until she is still and he can finally let go.

**iv.**

They die side by side. They die together. They die as one, leaving the Earth during a stormy winter and dreaming of summers when they ruled the world as king and queen.


End file.
